Page:The Letters of Cicero Shuckburg III.pdf/387

 DCLXXXIX (F XVI, 18)

TO TIRO (AT TUSCULUM)



What do you say? Ought it not be so? I think it ought for my part. The word ought also to be added. But, if you please, let us avoid exciting prejudice, which however I have myself often neglected. I am glad the sweating has done you good. If only Tusculum has done so also, good heavens! what a charm that would add to the place in my eyes! But if you love me, as you do, or make a very pretty imitation of doing—an imitation which quite answers its purpose—well, however that may be, nurse your health now, to which, while devoting yourself to my service, you have not been devoted enough. You know what it requires—good digestion, freedom from fatigue, moderate walking, friction of the skin, easy operation of the bowels. Be sure you come back looking well. That would make me still fonder of Tusculum as well as of you. Stir up Parhedrus to hire the garden for himself: by doing so you will keep the actual gardener up to the mark. That utter scoundrel Helico used to pay a thousand sesterces, when there was no hot-bed, no water turned on, no wall, no garden-shed. Is he to have the laugh of us, after we have spent all that money?